Eleven Minutes Part 11

She asks him to take his clothes off and she does the Same- Darkness is never absolute, and as soon as her eyes become accustomed to it, she can see the man's silhouette, outlined against the faintest of lights coming from who knows where. The last time they met for this purpose, she left only part of her body naked.She takes two carefully folded handkerchiefs, which have been washed and rinsed several times to get rid of the 223 slightest trace of perfume or soap. She goes over to him and asks him to blindfold himself. He hesitates for a moment and makes some remark about various h.e.l.ls he has been through before. She says it's nothing to do with that, she just needs total darkness; now it is her turn to teach him something, just as yesterday he taught her about pain. He gives in and puts on the blindfold. She does the same; now there is not a glimmer of light, they are in absolute darkness, and they have to hold hands in order to reach the bed.

'No, we mustn't lie down. Let's sit as we always do, face to face, only a little closer, so that my knees touch your knees.'

She has always wanted to do this, but she never had what she most needed: time. Not with her first boyfriend, or with the man who penetrated her for the first time. Not with the Arab who paid her a thousand francs, perhaps hoping for more than she was able to give him, although a thousand francs wouldn't be enough for her to buy what she wanted. Not with the many men who had pa.s.sed through her body, who have come and gone between her legs, sometimes thinking about themselves, sometimes thinking about her too, sometimes harbouring romantic dreams, sometimes instinctively repeating certain words because they have been told that that is what men do, and that if they don't, they are not real men.

She thinks of her diary. She has had enough, she wants the remaining weeks to pa.s.s quickly, and that is why she was giving herself to this man, because the light of her own lov 224 lies hidden there. Original sin was not the apple that Eve ate, it was her belief that Adam needed to share precisely the thing she had tasted. Eve was afraid to follow her path without someone to help her, and so she wanted to share what she was feeling.

Certain things cannot be shared. Nor can we be afraid of the oceans into which we plunge of our own free will; fear cramps everyone's style. Man goes through h.e.l.l in order to understand this. Love one another, but let's not try to possess one another.

I love this man sitting before me now, because I do not possess him and he does not possess me. We are free in ourmutual surrender; I need to repeat this dozens, hundreds, millions of time, until I finally believe my own words.

She thinks about the other prost.i.tutes who work with her.

She thinks about her mother and her friends. They all believe that man feels desire for only eleven minutes a day, and that they'll pay a fortune for it. That's not true; a man is also a woman; he wants to find someone, to give meaning to his life.

Does her mother behave just as she does and pretend to have an o.r.g.a.s.m with her father? Or in the interior of Brazil, is it still forbidden for a woman to take pleasure in s.e.x?

She knows so little of life and love, and now - with her eyes "nndfolded and with all the time in the world, she is discovering the origin of everything, and everything begins where and how she would like it to have begun.

Touch. Forget prost.i.tutes, clients, her mother and her ner now she is in total darkness. She has spent the whole 225 afternoon wondering what she could give to a man who had restored her dignity and made her understand that the search for happiness is more important than the need for pain.

I would like to give him the happiness of teaching me something new, just as yesterday he taught me about suffering, street prost.i.tutes and sacred prost.i.tutes. I saw how much he enjoys teaching me things, so let him teach me, guide me. I would like to know how one reaches the body, without going via the soul, penetration, o.r.g.a.s.m.

She holds out her hand and asks him to do the same. She whispers a few words, saying that tonight, in this no-man'sland, she would like him to discover her skin, the boundary between her and the world. She asks him to touch her, to feel her with his hands, because bodies always understand each other, even when souls do not. He begins touching her, and she touches him too, and, as if by prior agreement, they both avoid the parts of the body where s.e.xual energy surfaces most rapidly.

His fingers touch her face, and she can smell just a hint of ink on them, a smell that will stay there forever, even if he washes his hands thousands and millions of times, a smell which was there when he was born, when he saw his first tree, his first house, and decided to draw them in his dreams. He must be able to smell something on her hands too, but she doesn't know what, and doesn't want to ask, because at that moment everything is body, and the rest is silence.She caresses and is caressed. She could stay like this a night, because it is so pleasurable and won't necessarily en 226 in s.e.x, and at that moment, precisely because there is no obligation to have s.e.x, she feels hot between her legs and knows that she has become wet. When he touches her there, he will discover this, and she doesn't know if this is good or bad, this is just how her body is reacting, and she doesn't intend telling him to go here or there, more slowly or more quickly. His hands are touching her armpits now, the hairs on her arms stand on end, and she feels like pus.h.i.+ng his hands away, but it feels good, although perhaps it is pain she is feeling.

She does the same to him and notices that the skin in his armpits has a different texture, perhaps because of the deodorant they both use, but what is she thinking of? She mustn't think. She must touch, that is all.

His fingers trace circles around her breast, like an animal watching. She wants them to move more quickly, to touch her nipples, because her thoughts are moving faster than his hands, but, perhaps knowing this, he provokes, lingers, takes an age to get there. Her nipples are hard now, he plays with them a little, and that causes more goose pimples, causes her to become hotter and wetter. Now he is moving across her belly, then down to her legs, her feet, he strokes his hands up and down her inner thigh, he feels the heat, but does not approach, his touch is soft, light, and the ohter it is the more intoxicating.

She does the same, her hands almost floating over his in touching only the hairs on his legs, and she too feels the need when she approaches his genitals. Suddenly, it is as if she had mysteriously recovered her virginity, as if she were 227 discovering a man's body for the first time. She touches his p.e.n.i.s. It is not as hard as she imagined, and yet she is so wet how unfair, but maybe a man needs more time, who knows.

And she begins to stroke it as only virgins know how because prost.i.tutes have long since forgotten. The man reacts, his p.e.n.i.s begins to grow in her hands, and she slowly increases the pressure, knowing now where she should touch, more at the bottom than at the top, she must wrap her fingers around it, push the skin back, towards his body. Now he is.e.xcited, very excited, he touches the lips of her v.a.g.i.n.a, still very softly, and she feels like asking him to be more forceful, to put his fingers right inside. But he doesn't do that, he moistens the c.l.i.toris with a little of the liquid pouring from her womb, and again makes the same circular movements he made on her nipples. This man touches her exactly as she would touch herself.

One of his hands goes back to her breast; it feels so good, she wishes he would put his arms around her now. But, no, they are discovering the body, they have time, they need a lot of time. They could make love now; it would be the most natural thing in the world, and it might be good, but all this is so new, she needs to control herself, she does not want to spoil everything. She remembers the wine they drank on that first night, how they sipped it slowly, savouring each mouthful, how she felt it warming her and how it made her see the world differently and left her more at ease and more in touch with life.

She wants to drink that man too, and then she can forget forever the cheap wine that you gulp down and that 228 makes you feel drunk, but always leaves you with a headache and an empty s.p.a.ce in your soul.

She stops, slowly entwines her fingers with his, she hears a moan and would like to moan too, but she stops herself, she feels heat spreading throughout her body; the same thing must be happening to him. Without an o.r.g.a.s.m, the energy disperses, travels to the brain, not letting her think of anything but going all the way, but this is what she wants, to stop, to stop halfway, to spread the pleasure through her whole body, to allow it to invade her mind, renewing her commitment and her desire, restoring her virginity.

She gently removes the blindfold from her own eyes and removes his too. She turns on the bedside lamp. Both are naked; they do not smile, they simply look at each other. I am love, I am music, she thinks. Let's dance.

But she doesn't say anything: they talk about something trivial, about when they will next meet, she suggests a date, perhaps in two days' time. He says he would like to invite her to an exhibition, but she hesitates. That would mean getting to know his world, his friends, and what would they saY, what would they think.

She says no, but he realises that she really wants to say yes, and so he insists, using a few foolish arguments, butwhich are all part of the dance they are dancing now, and in the end she agrees, because that is what she would like.

they arrange where to meet - in the same cafe where they met that first day? No, she says, Brazilians are very 229 superst.i.tious, and you must never meet in the same place where you first met, because that might close a cycle and bring everything to an end.

He says that he's glad she doesn't want to close that particular cycle. They decide to meet at a church from where you can see the whole city, and which is on the road to Santiago, part of the mysterious pilgrimage that the two of them have been on ever since they met.

From Maria's diary, on the eve of buying her ticket back to Brazil: Once upon a time, there was a bird. He was adorned with two perfect wings and with glossy, colourful, marvellous feathers. In short, he was a creature made to fly about freely in the sky, bringing joy to everyone who saw him.

One day, a woman saw this bird and fell in love with him. She watched his flight, her mouth wide in amazement, her heart pounding, her eyes s.h.i.+ning with excitement. She invited the bird to fly with her, and the two travelled across the sky in perfect harmony. She admired and venerated and celebrated that bird.

But then she thought: He might want to visit faroff mountains! And she was afraid, afraid that she would never feel the same way about any other bird. And she felt envy, envy for the bird's ability to fly- And she felt alone.

230 And she thought: 'I'm going to set a trap. The next time the bird appears, he will never leave again.'

The bird, who was also in love, returned the following day, fell into the trap and was put in a cage.

She looked at the bird every day. There he was, the object of her pa.s.sion, and she showed him to her friends, who said: 'Now you have everything you could possibly want.' However, a strange transformation began to take place: now that she had the bird and no longer needed to woo him, she began to lose interest. The bird, unable to fly and express the true meaning of his life, began to waste away and his feathers to lose their gloss; he grew ugly; and the woman no longer paid him any attention, except by feeding him and cleaning out hiscage.

One day, the bird died. The woman felt terribly sad and spent all her time thinking about him. But she did not remember the cage, she thought only of the day when she had seen him for the first time, flying contentedly amongst the clouds.

If she had looked more deeply into herself, she would have realised that what had thrilled her about the bird was his freedom, the energy of his wings in notion, not his physical body.

Without the bird, her life too lost all meaning, and death came knocking at her door. 'Why have you come?' she asked Death. 'So that you can fly once Ore with him across the sky,' Death replied. 'If you 23 had allowed him to come and go, you would have loved and admired him even more; alas, you now need me in order to find him again.'

232 i She, started the day by doing something she had rehea.r.s.ed over and over during all these past months: she went into a travel agent's and bought a ticket to Brazil for the date she had marked on her calendar, in two weeks' time.

From then on, Geneva would be the face of a man she loved and who had loved her. Rue de Berne would just be a name, a homage to Switzerland's capital city. She would remember her room, the lake, the French language, the crazy things a twenty-three-year-old woman (it had been her birthday the night before) is capable of - until she realises there is a limit.

She would not cage the bird, nor would she suggest he go with her to Brazil; he was the only truly pure thing that had happened to her. A bird like that must fly free and feed on nostalgia for the time when he flew alongside someone else.

And she too was a bird; having Ralf Hart by her side would mean remembering forever her days at the Pacabana. And that was her past, not her future.

She decided to say 'goodbye' just once, when the moment came for her to leave, rather than have to suffer every time she thought: 'Soon I won't be here any more'. So she played a mind on her heart and, that morning, she walked around Geneva as if she had always known those streets, thathill, 233 II the road to Santiago, the Montblanc bridge, the bars she used to go to. She watched the seagulls flying over the river the market traders taking down their stalls, people leaving their offices to go to lunch, noticed the colour and taste of the apple she was eating, the planes landing in the distance, the rainbow in the column of water rising up from the middle of the lake, the shy, concealed joy of pa.s.sers-by, the looks she got, some full of desire, some expressionless. She had lived for nearly a year in a small town, like so many other small towns in the world, and if it hadn't been for the architecture peculiar to the place and the excessive number of banks, it could have been the interior of Brazil. There was a fair. There was a market.

There were housewives haggling over prices. There were students who had skipped a cla.s.s at school, on the excuse perhaps that their mother or their father was ill, and who were now strolling by the river, exchanging kisses. There were people who felt at home and people who felt foreign.

There were tabloid newspapers full of scandals and respectable magazines for businessmen, who, however, were only ever to be seen reading the scandal sheets.

She went to the library to return the manual on farm management. She hadn't understood a word of it, but, at times when she felt she had lost control of herself and of her destiny, the book had served as a reminder of her objective in life. It had been a silent companion, with its peach yellow cover, its series of graphs, but, above all, it had been a lighthouse in the dark nights of recent weeks.

Always making plans for the future, and always be surprised by the present, she thought to herself. She felt 234 had discovered herself through independence, despair, love, pain, and back again to love - and she would like things to end there.

The oddest thing of all was that, while some of her work colleagues spoke of the wonder or the ecstasy of going to bed with certain men, she had never discovered anything either good or bad about herself through s.e.x. She had not solved her problem, she could still not have an o.r.g.a.s.m through penetration, and she had vulgarised the s.e.xual act so much that she might never again find the 'embrace of recognition'- as Ralf Hart called it - or the fire and joy she sought. Or perhaps (as she occasionally thought, and as mothers, fathers and romances all said) love was necessary if one was to experience pleasure in bed.

The normally serious librarian (and Maria's only friend, although she had never told her so) was in a good mood. She was having a bite to eat and invited her to share a sandwich. Maria thanked her and said that she had just eaten. 'You took a long time to read this.' 'I didn't understand a word.' Do you remember what you asked me once?' No, she didn't, but when she saw the mischievous look in the other woman's face, she guessed. s.e.x. know, after you came here in search of books on the subject, I decided to make a list of what we had. It wasn't much, and since we need to educate our young people in such matters, I ordered a few more books. At 235 least, this way they won't need to learn about s.e.x in that worst of all possible ways - by going with prost.i.tutes.' The librarian pointed to a pile of books in a corner, all discreetly covered in brown paper.

'I haven't had time to catalogue them yet, but I had a quick glance through and I was horrified by what I read.' Maria could imagine what the woman was going to say: embarra.s.sing positions, sadomasochism, things of that sort.

She had better tell her that she had to get back to work (she couldn't remember whether she had told her she worked in a bank or in a shop - lying made life so complicated, she was always forgetting what she had said).

She thanked her and was about to leave, when the other woman said: 'You'd be horrified too. Did you know, for example, that the c.l.i.toris is a recent invention?'

An invention? Recent? Just this week someone had touched hers, as if it had always been there and as if those hands knew the terrain they were exploring well, despite the total darkness.

'It was officially accepted in 1559, after a doctor, Reald/ Columbo, published a book ent.i.tled De re anatomica. If was officially ignored for fifteen hundred years or tn Christian era. Columbo describes it in his book as "a pretty and a useful thing". Can you believe it?'

They both laughed.

'Two years later, in 1561, another doctor, Gabrie Fallopio, said that he had "discovered" it. Imagine tha Twomen - Italians, of course, who know about such things.

236 - arguing about who had officially added the c.l.i.toris to the history books!'

It was an interesting conversation, but Maria didn't want to think about these things, mainly because she could already feel the juices flowing and her v.a.g.i.n.a getting wet just remembering his touch, the blindfolds, his hands moving over her body. No, she wasn't dead to s.e.x; that man had managed to rescue her. It was good to be alive.

The librarian, however, was warming to her subject.

'Its "discovery" didn't mean it received any more respect, though.' The librarian seemed to have become an expert on c.l.i.torology, or whatever that science is called. 'The mutilations we read about now in certain African tribes, who still insist on removing the woman's right to s.e.xual pleasure, are nothing new. In the nineteenth century, here in Europe, they were still performing operations to remove it, in the belief that in that small, insignificant part of the female anatomy lay the root of hysteria, epilepsy, adulterous tendencies and sterility.'

Maria held out her hand to say goodbye, but the librarian showed no signs of tiring.

'Worse still, dear Dr Freud, the founder of psychoa.n.a.lysis, said that in a normal woman, the female o.r.g.a.s.m should move from the c.l.i.toris to the v.a.g.i.n.a. His most faithful Freud went further and said that if a woman's s.e.xuality asure remained concentrated in the c.l.i.toris, this was a infantilism or, worse, bis.e.xuality. and yet, as we all know, it is very difficult to have an organism through penetration. It's good to have s.e.x with 237 a man, but pleasure lies in that little nub discovered by an Italian!'

Distracted, Maria realised that she had that problem diagnosed by Freud: she was still in the infantile stage, her o.r.g.a.s.m had not moved to the v.a.g.i.n.a. Or was Freud wrong?

'And what do you think about the G-spot?'

'Do you know where it is?'

The other woman blushed and coughed, but managed to say: 'As you go in, on the first floor, the back window.' Brilliant! She had described the v.a.g.i.n.a as if it were a building! Perhaps she had read that explanation in a book foryoung girls, to say that if someone knocks on the door and comes in, you'll discover a whole universe inside your own body. Whenever she m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed, she preferred to concentrate on her G-spot rather than on the c.l.i.toris, since the latter made her feel rather uncomfortable, a pleasure mingled with real pain, rather troubling.

She always went straight to the first floor, to the back window!

Seeing that the librarian was clearly never going to stop talking, perhaps because she had discovered in Maria an accomplice to her own lost s.e.xuality, she gave a wave of hand and left, trying to concentrate on whatever nonsense came into her head, because this was not a day to think about farewells, c.l.i.torises, restored virginities or G-spotsfocused on what was going on around her - bells ri dogs barking, a tram rattling over the tracks, footstep own breathing, the signs offering everything under 238 She did not feel like going back to the Copacabana, and yet she felt an obligation to work until the end, although she had no real idea why - after all, she had saved enough money. She could spend the afternoon doing some shopping, talking to the bank manager, who was a client of hers, but who had promised to help her manage her savings, having a cup of coffee somewhere, sending off the clothes that wouldn't fit into her suitcases. It was strange, for some reason, she was feeling rather sad; perhaps because it was still another two weeks before she would leave, and she needed to get through that time, to look at the city with different eyes and feel glad for what she had experienced there.

She came to a crossroads where she had been hundreds of time before; you could see the lake from there and the water spout, and, on the far pavement, in the middle of the public gardens, the lovely floral clock, one of the city's symbols ... and that clock would not allow her to lie, because ... Suddenly, time and the world stood still.

What was this story she had been telling herself since the orning, something about her recently restored virginity? The world seemed frozen, that second would never end, as face to face with something very serious and very important in her life, she could not just forget about it, she could not do as she did with her night-time dreams, which she has promised herself she would write down and whenever did...239 she 'Don't think about anything! The world has stopped. What's going on?'

ENOUGH!

The bird, the lovely story about the bird she had just written - was it about Ralf Hart?

No, it was about her! FULL STOP!

It was two o'clock in the morning, and she was frozen in that moment. She was a foreigner inside her own body, she was rediscovering her recently restored virginity, but its rebirth was so fragile that if she stayed there, it would be lost forever. She had experienced Heaven perhaps, certainly h.e.l.l, but the Adventure was coming to an end. She couldn't wait two weeks, ten days, one week - she needed to leave now, because, as she stood looking at the floral clock, with tourists taking pictures of it and children playing all around, she had just found out why she was sad.

And the reason was this: she didn't want to go back. And the reason she didn't want to go back wasn't Ralf Hart, Switzerland or Adventure. The real reason couldn't have been simpler: money.

Money! A special piece of paper, decorated in sombre colours, which everyone agreed was worth something - and she believed it, everyone believed it - until you took a piece of that paper to a bank, a respectable, traditional, highly confidential Swiss bank and asked: 'Could I buy back a few hours of my life?' 'No, madam, we don't sell, we only buyMaria was woken from her delirium by the sound / screeching brakes, a motorist shouting, and a smiling / 240 gentleman, speaking English, telling her to step back onto the pavement - the pedestrian light was red.

'But this can't be exactly an earth-shattering discovery. Everyone must feel what I feel.

They must know.'

But they didn't. She looked around her. People were walking along, heads down, hurrying off to work, to school, to the employment agency, to Rue de Berne, telling themselves: 'I can wait a little longer. I have a dream, but there's no need to realise it today, besides, I need to earn some money.' Of course, everyone spoke ill of her profession,but, basically, it was all a question of selling her time, like everyone else. Doing things she didn't want to do, like everyone else. Putting up with horrible people, like everyone else. Handing over her precious body and her precious soul in the name of a future that never arrived, like everyone else. Saying that she still didn't have enough, like everyone else. Waiting just a little bit longer, like everyone else. Waiting so that she could earn just a little bit more, postponing the realisation of her dreams; she was too busy right now, she had a great opportunity ahead of her, loyal clients who were waiting for her, who could pay between three hundred and fifty and one thousand francs a session.

And for the first time in her life, despite all the good things she could buy with the money she might earn - who knows, she might only have to work another year - she decided consciously, lucidly and deliberately to let an opportunity pa.s.s her by.

Maria waited for the light to change, she crossed the street and paused in front of the floral clock; she thought of 241 Ralf, saw again the look of desire in his eyes on the night when she had slipped off the top half of her dress, felt his hands touching her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her s.e.x, her face, and she became wet; and as she looked at the vast column of water in the distance, without even having to touch any part of her own body, she had an o.r.g.a.s.m right there, in front of everyone.

Not that anyone noticed; they were all far too busy.

242 J Nyah, the only one of her work colleagues with whom she had a relations.h.i.+p that could be described as friends.h.i.+p, called her over as soon as she came in. She was sitting with an oriental gentleman, and they were both laughing.

'Look at this,' she said to Maria. 'Look what he wants me to do with him!'

The oriental gentleman gave a knowing look and, still smiling, opened the lid of what looked like a cigar box. Milan was watching from a distance in case it contained syringes or drugs. It did not, it was something that even he didn't know quite what to do with, but it wasn't anything very special.'It looks like something from the last century!' said Maria.

'It is,' said the oriental gentleman indignantly. 'It's over a hundred years old and it cost a fortune.'

What Maria saw was a series of valves, a handle, electric lrcuits, small metal contacts and batteries. It looked like the inside of an ancient radio, with two wires sticking out, at the ends of which were small gla.s.s rods, about the thickness o/f a finger. It certainly didn't look like something that had cost a fortune. How does it work?'

had L 243 Nyah didn't like Maria's question. Although she trusted Maria, people could change from one moment to the next and she might have her eye on her client.

'He's already explained. It's the Violet Rod.'

And turning to the oriental man, she suggested that they leave, because she had decided to accept his invitation. However, the man seemed pleased that his toy should have aroused such interest.

'Around 1900, when the first batteries came onto the market, traditional medicine started experimenting with electricity to see if it could cure mental illness or hysteria.

It was also used to get rid of spots and to stimulate the skin. You see these two ends? Well, they were placed here,' he indicated his temples, 'and the battery created the same sort of static electricity that you get in Switzerland when the air's very dry.'

Static electricity was something that never happened in Brazil, but was very common in Switzerland. Maria had discovered it one day when she opened the door of a taxi; she had heard a crack and received a shock. She thought there must be something wrong with the car and had complained, saying that she wasn't going to pay the fare' and the driver had insulted her and told her she was stupid. He was right; it wasn't the car, it was the dry air. Ane receiving several more shocks, she began to be arrai touching anything made of metal, until she discovered 1 supermarket a bracelet she could wear that discharge electricity acc.u.mulated in the body.

She turned to the man: 244 'But that's really nasty.'Nyah was getting more and more irritated by Maria's remarks. In order to avoid future conflicts with her only possible friend, she kept her arm around the man's shoulder, thus leaving no room for doubt as to who he belonged to.

'It depends where you put it,' said the man, laughing loudly.

He turned the little handle and the two rods seemed to turn violet. He quickly placed them on the two women; there was a crack, but the shock was more ticklish than painful. Milan came over.

'Would you mind not using that in here, please.'

The man put the rods back inside the box. Nyah seized the moment and suggested that they go straight to the hotel. The man seemed rather disappointed, since the new arrival seemed far more interested in his machine than the woman who was now suggesting they go back to his hotel. He put on his jacket and stowed the box away inside a leather briefcase, saying: 'They've started making them again now; they've become quite fas.h.i.+onable amongst people in search of sPecial pleasures. But you'd only find ones like this in rare medical collections, museums and antique shops.'

Milan and Maria just stood there, not knowing what to say. Have you ever seen one before?'

Not like that, no. It probably did cost a fortune, but he s a top executive with an oil company ... I've seen mod^rn ones, though.'

'What do they do with them?'

245 'The man puts them inside his body ... and then asks the woman to turn the handle. He gets an electric shock inside.'

'Couldn't he do that on his own?'